Despite a 3-1 win over St. Louis on Tuesday night, Stars coach Jim Montgomery was again disappointed in Dallas' third period. The Stars managed just two shots in the final 20 minutes while protecting a two-goal lead, and counted on goaltender Ben Bishop to make 12 saves on St. Louis shots.

The Blues attempted 23 shots in the third period. The Stars attempted 10. The Blues had 12 scoring chances in the third period, according to Natural Stat Trick. The Stars had four.

"Whether we've lost or we've won, our third periods, we don't come out and take games," Montgomery said. "He hope to win, we don't play to win. We just got to get tougher, physically, mentally so that we can make the right plays. They're on a back-to-back. We shouldn't give up three scoring chances. We gave up like 12."

Stars players echoed their coach.

Tyler Seguin: "Third period, we'd still like to obviously improve. But those are details that are going to keep getting better."

After some early-season misfortune, Stars center Tyler Seguin knew the pucks would eventually start going in the net

John Klingberg: "That's not good enough. We talked about it before we went out there in the third period that we have to keep playing how we want with the system. We going to have to be better playing with the lead. At the same time, we do hunt it down and get the two points on the road. But it's not good enough, we have to be better in the third period."

Alexander Radulov: "The third period, that's not the hockey we want to play. We were up 3-1, but they had a lot of chances at the end. We got to clean that up and be better."

The Stars are one of the worst third-period teams in the league. They've given up 49 third-period goals, the sixth-most in the NHL. They've been outshot 498-358 this season, an average of 3.18 per game.

The issue has baffled Montgomery and his staff. Before Tuesday's third period, Montgomery challenged his team. Afterward, he said he didn't know what else to try.

"Before the third period, I said if we play the right way, we're on the right puck, we pressure, we pursue, we play together, we shouldn't give up more than five shots," Montgomery said. "The Blues were on a back-to-back. That didn't work, so got to try something else.

"I don't know. I just don't. We've tried a lot of different things, nothing's worked so far. But we're just going to keep pushing. The staff's going to keep on them. We've got to change our mentality. That's the bottom line."

Montgomery also didn't think it was an issue of the Stars playing to the score instead of playing to their game. He pointed to a 5-2 loss to Chicago as evidence that the Stars don't need to be leading in order to submit a lackluster third period.

"No, can't say that," Montgomery said. "When we were behind against Chicago, we didn't give a push. It's just our group's mentality and we're all trying to change it. No one's happy with it, players, coaches. But we're stuck in the mud."

Tuesday was the second time in five days Montgomery was displeased with parts of his team's performance after a win. Following an overtime win over Washington on Friday, Montgomery said his team can become too complacent with success.

In the division: Of the Stars' remaining 38 games, 16 of them are against Central Division opponents. Tuesday was the first of four meetings with St. Louis, a schedule quirk that matched the two division rivals for the first time in January.

The rest of the season, the longest the Stars go without playing a division foe is four games

"We knew our schedule," Seguin said. "Probably from game 10, we were talking [about how] our second 41 games were all divisional opponents, pretty much. We've known this has been coming."

After Tuesday's win, the Stars are in third place in the Central Division, two points ahead of Colorado. Dallas is 23-17-4 with 50 points.